Beyond the Edge Beyond the Bar: 13.05 Te Awamutu: Dairying & the Fonterra Fleet

Fountain in Public Rose Garden, Te Awamutu

Last Saturday (February 9) we moved to the town of Te Awamutu. Some locals sometimes refer to the town as ‘TA’ or ‘Te A’. Most commonly Kiwis elide the town’s name (as they do other place names), speaking of ‘Te Amutu’. However pronounced, the town is about thirty minutes south of Hamilton on NZ Route 3. Along with the adjacent town of Kihikihi, the population of Te Awamutu is between 12,000 and 14,000, depending on sources consulted. Te Awamutu means ‘the river’s end’. As it happens, New Zealand is experiencing a bone-dry summer, but life goes on. And here in the Waikato Region farming is pre-eminent and Te Awamutu is one of the more prominent ‘agricultural and pastoral’ towns (as they say).

In TA you’ll find many national and international retail outlets. On the international side, you’ll find the usual suspects: Burger King, KFC, McDonalds (which has wi-fi), Subway, and local franchises of international auto manufacturers. There are even some unlikely suspects, like Century 21 and Bed Bath & Beyond. As for national chains, New Zealand’s two most prominent supermarket chains, Countdown and Pak ’N Save, have large and beautiful brand-new stores. Among their local competition you’ll find the Fruit Monster, reputed for its excellent fruits and vegetables at good prices. Among national retailers in downtown TA, you’ll see a big red Warehouse store, Warehouse being the Kiwi version of Walmart (minus the in-store supermarket). And there are numerous other retail outlets, including a swarm of bakeries, pie shops, cafes, and restaurants (More about that, probably, in another post).

Te Awamutu hosts primary and secondary schools, including ones run by churches (St Patrick’s and Waipa Christian). And because TA is district seat for the WaipaDistrict of the Waikato Region, there are a number of governmental offices, including a courthouse. The town is graced by sporting facilities (even a velodrome!) and a number of parks and parklands. Foremost among the parks, if not in size, is the town’s Rose Garden, immediately adjacent to the town’s i-Site center. ‘i-Site’ is the moniker used throughout New Zealand for visitor and information centers. Te Awamutu bills itself as ‘The Rose Town of New Zealand’.

Jean and I attended St John’s Anglican Church last Sunday. It’s more or less across the road from the i-Site and Rose Garden. At St John’s we were told that most New Zealand towns were established for one of four reasons: to serve as a military post, to house lumber folk, to house railway people, or to serve as a missionary post to the Māori people. Te Awamutu was established for the last reason. Indeed, St John’s was the mission around which the town grew. The Hamilton/TA bus bears graphics purporting that Te Awamutu has the second oldest church in New Zealand. Presumably that’s St John’s.

Te Awamutu’s pre-eminence now lies in farming (as might be expected in most of the Waikato Region). There are numerous businesses in TA serving the agricultural and pastoral sector. The landmark structure of TA is a huge Fonterra milk-processing plant straddling the North Island Main Trunk Railway.

Fonterra is a New Zealand dairy cooperative owned by somewhat over 10,000 dairy farmers (from throughout New Zealand). It is New Zealand’s largest company. Fonterra alone accounts for 30 percent of the world’s dairy exports. Australia is New Zealand’s No. 1 trading partner, consuming about 19% of Kiwi exports (as measured by dollars). China is No. 2. China may well be the primary recipient of New Zealand’s dairy exports (from Fonterra and another New Zealand cooperative). Reportedly ninety-five percent of the milk solids produced by Fonterra farmers is exported in one form or another. Fonterra’s annual export income (in US dollars) is somewhere between $16 billion and $17 billion.

At least twice a day a fleet of semis, each semi hauling two large tanks, heads out of TA to dairy farms to fetch fresh milk. A majority of the fleet runs along Alexandra Street, the town’s main street, to a roundabout where some semis go one way and others go another. Right at this roundabout is the town’s Subway outlet, which Jean and I patronized while moving in. I wasn’t the only one counting semis as they came by in quick succession in a half hour’s time. I got to thirty-five before we left for home (just a few blocks from downtown).

The procession impressed those of us who saw it, but my new TA barber told me some locals—just a few—have complained about the truck traffic and noise. In a paper mill town in Wisconsin I once heard an outsider complain about the (sulfur) smell of the paper mills. A local responded, ‘It’s the smell of money and we can live with it.’ Indeed. No trucks, no milk. No milk, no factory. No factory, no export. No export, well what do you have left? Exports are vital to New Zealand’s commodity-centric economy. Most Kiwis must know that. TA’s Fonterra plant and its likes are adding value to what’s being exported.

Milk virtually begs to be upgraded before being exported. It has to be processed in some fashion to be safely transported abroad with any reasonable expiration date: as butter, cheese, long-life milk, powdered milk—you name it. This addition to value, captured in New Zealand’s dairy industry, results in additional employment opportunities for Kiwis. Opportunities like this may be largely lost in the forestry industry, another source of Kiwi export earnings. My guess is that most timber leaves New Zealand largely unprocessed, not as finished lumber or, say, as paper. So all those log-laden semis heading to port mean Kiwi jobs, yes, but not the value-added kinds of jobs that are customary in the Kiwi dairy sector.

So perhaps there should be annual gatherings to bless and give thanks for New Zealand’s dairy fleets and, more generally, for its dairy industry. Prayerful moments such as this could draw on both the Māori and Christian roots of New Zealand’s culture. Maybe this could be done on Waitangi Day. Maybe, too, once a year they could post bands to play for the morning and evening departure of the fleets as a sign of gratitude and goodwill. Te Awamutu and places like it across New Zealand have reason to show thanks to God and neighbor for their beautiful and bountiful land.

Jean and I look forward to living in Te Awamutu for the next five months. We look forward to the semis, too. May they keep on rollin’, please… and thank you.

Warm regards,

Tim & Jean

PS. Here below are some photos taken quite late on a February, summer's day at the Te Awamutu Public Rose Garden.